I Thank Christ Jesus Our Lord

Training our experience and God has, graciously called us into this ministry. Our goal is to be fully supported by June of, That prayer. Also be praying for Pastor Milton as he is speaking in New York at the men's conference. He was speaking about, here recently, one of his messages.

He's speaking on the gospel. What else? And, and they invited him to come out because of the gospel primer. And so please keep Pastor Milton in your prayers.

it's my privilege this morning to preach from First Timothy. So if you could turn to First Timothy chapter one. We'll be discussing verses 12 to 14. And the title of this morning's message comes straight from the Apostle Paul, I thank Christ Jesus.

Our Lord Let me go ahead and read the text and then we'll get into this morning's message. Paul says in verse 12 to Timothy, I thank him who enabled me, Christ Jesus, our Lord, that he counted me faithful, appointing me to his service. Even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and insolent opponent, but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with faith, and love that are found in Christ Jesus.

Let's pray. Lord, we pray this morning that you would be our wisdom. Without you we are blind. We pray, Lord, that You would be our vision.

Without you, we are ignorant. Lord, we pray that your spirit would open up our eyes to understand the truths spoken of by Paul in this passage. And Lord, may we give you thanks for all that you've done in our lives, as Paul gives you thanks for all that you've done in his life. In Christ's name, we pray.

Amen. believe it or not, Thanksgiving is fast approaching. It's November 27th, and we have a Thanksgiving service in the evening of November 23rd. We encourage you to come out to that.

But I need to be honest with you, it's been really hard for me lately to stay in that thankful disposition. We know that Christians, as Christians, we're commanded to be thankful always, and not just get geared up for Thanksgiving. But I am, and I'm sure some of you have, have had trouble staying in that, that spirit of thankfulness, just given some of the events that are going on right now in our country, and some of the things that we see happening to Christians and people of faith.

There are worries and fears that can take our eyes and minds away from thankfulness to Christ.

I had the opportunity to be part of the Yes on 8 campaign during this last election and was able to help out with making phone calls and putting up signs and so on and so forth, and after the proposition passed on election day, we have seen numerous churches have their property defaced and vandalized. An unknown white powder was mailed to several religious institutions this last week. In Sacramento, a musical theater director was forced to resign after he was blacklisted for contributing to the S on 8 campaign.

We're being told that by the opposition that churches should stay out of the public square and remain silent in a government by the people for the people.

People are calling for the removal of churches tax exempt status, though they participated in the political process with impeccable regard for IRS regulations. The media isn't relaying information about the harassment, intimidation, and religious discrimination going on throughout the country, and our legislators' silence concerning the abuse is deafening. On Friday, I had the opportunity to participate in a coalition in Santa Ana of 500 pastors and religious leaders, the leaders of the SN 8 campaign that you've seen on the news leading up to the campaign.

500 different leaders in Santa Ana met.

people of all different faiths and all different ethnicities with one message, and the message was this. You have the right to protest. You have the right to go through the court systems and put another measure on the ballot. But please, please, stop defacing our churches.

Stop vandalizing our temples. Stop intimidating 66 year old women who want to carry a cross in the streets. Stop sending white powder, threatening organizations as a supposed anthrax threat. Stop writing the head of the S on 8 campaign's father and say, we're going to kill your daughter.

This is the stuff that is going on all the time all throughout the country. I attended this campaign of 500 pastors and religious leaders. Channel 7 was there. All the major networks were there.

And there has not been one word about this coalition. The press enterprise on Saturday said nothing. The president prise this morning said nothing except report that there's protests going on around the country about Noah. These are the types of things that are going on that I have to be careful about because it's taking my eyes off the thankfulness that I need to have in Christ.

Add to that that sometime after January 20th, 2009, the very first bill that will likely be signed into law will be the Freedom of Choice Act, which will establish the right to abortion as a fundamental right and wipe away every restriction, including partial birth abortion. In our state currently, a 16 year old can't get an aspirin at school without parental consent, but she can get an abortion without her parents' knowledge. I'm having trouble focusing on thankfulness at the moment.

Add to that, while this is within the rights of everybody in our culture, but it shows where we are in our culture.

There's a new ad this Christmas, an ad campaign called Why Believe in God? Just be good for goodness' sake, to appear on buses in Washington DC starting this week. 4,000 $40,000 paid by the American Humanist Association. To promote this particular idea, which is their right to do.

You think also of just all of the family members that we have and unsafe friends and coworkers who seem to be growing more and more hard towards Christ in our culture. I think of young people that I see out on the streets, even young people growing up in our churches that seem to be growing hard towards the things of Christ. Family members, friends, coworkers. Enemies going hard towards the things of Christ, and it's hard to keep our eyes on the thankfulness.

Timothy had his own problems as a pastor in the city of Ephesus. If we think we've got problems today, try being a pastor in Ephesus, this pagan center. We have the temple of Artemaeus. With sexual worship was the norm, both heterosexual and homosexual prostitution was accepted as the norm as a worship in this temple.

Immorality from our viewpoint was the norm in Ephesus during the day that Timothy was a pastor. He has in his church, people that are not using the law lawfully, they're teaching false doctrine. He has young Christians that are believing false doctrine. And he's a young pastor without his mentor Paul, whirling around figuring out what am I supposed to do with all of this.

I'm a pastor in a pagan city with new Christians who've just come out of paganism who are listening to false teaching. I've got very influential false teachers, and Paul's not here. And to encourage Timothy, Paul tells his story by giving thanks in the middle of this trouble. Paul tells his story by giving thanks to Christ.

For saving such a terrible opponent of the church. He says, Timothy, You look at all the folks that you're battling against, those that are hardened against the gospel. Let me tell you about someone that put fear and trembling into the heart of Christians. Let me talk about someone who used to make the hair stand up on the back of the necks of believers, and that's me, Paul.

And he begins. To tell his testimony. And the message here is if Christ can save me, he can save those false teachers. If Christ can save me, he can save those worshippers to the temple of Diana.

If Christ can save Paul, he can save your hardened children. He can save your hardened family members. He can save the enemies of the gospel today. He can save them.

He saved Paul. That's his message. And so we want to present this morning 6 grounds for giving thanks to Christ. There's a lot of reasons to praise Jesus Christ.

And Paul gives us, I believe, or we can derive 6 grounds for giving thanks to Christ, that should encourage us with God's power and sovereign grace to change the most hardened opponents to Christ. Let's look at this first ground number one. Giving thanks to Christ. We can give thanks to Christ this morning for his enabling grace.

His enabling grace. Look at verse 12. Paul says, I thank him, who has enabled me, Christ Jesus, our Lord. Paul begins this section by thanking the Lord Jesus Christ, who has enabled him, empowered him, strengthened him.

Christ did for Paul what Paul could have never done for himself. Paul had no ability. To serve Christ, no ability to come to Christ in and of himself. Jesus says in John chapter 6, no one is able to come to me unless the Father draws him.

And yet Paul was made able, he was enabled to come to Christ. It makes me think of the famous hymn, Thy power and thine alone can change the leper spots and melt the heart of stone on that road to Damascus, Jesus Christ got a hold of a hardened sinner. and melted his heart to stone, and enabled him, a man that was unable to follow Christ, enabled him to come to Christ. Christ, the anointed One, Jesus the Savior, Jesus, the Lord and boss of the universe, our Lord.

enabled Paul. And if you think very long, Christ has enabled every one of you in this room who believes this morning, every one of us, we're hardened sinners with no ability to come to Christ in and of ourselves, but you were enabled by God's power to come to him. No doubt there are people in this room that used to make fun of Christians. I can remember a time in my life as a little boy sitting at a table with some friends laughing about a pastor in our community.

And making fun of this pastor in our community that was trying to reach out to little children. I, I wasn't more than 10 years old, laughing about this guy, 3 times my age, who was trying to bring me to Christ. I was a hardened sinner. You were hardened sinners, but somehow, the Holy Spirit Christ got a hold of you and it enabled you.

There's a second ground for thanks. We can give thanks to Christ with Paul that he has enabled us. But secondly, we can give thanks to Christ for his endowing grace, His endowing grace. Look at the second part of this verse.

Verse 12, I thank Him who's enabled me, Christ Jesus our Lord, that he counted me. Faithful He counted me faithful, he considered me, he reckoned me faithful and trustworthy. Unless we misunderstand what Paul's saying here, it's not that God looked down and saw Paul as a persecutor of the church, as an insolent blasphemer and said, There goes a faithful man. That's not what happened.

God looked down upon Paul and said, I can make that guy a faithful man. I am going to count him faithful. I'm going to consider him faithful. And Paul understands this in other, in other writings of 1 Corinthians 7:25, he says, Yet I give judgment as one whom the Lord in His mercy has made trustworthy.

The new King James says, and I think that's a proper translation. Augustine was a hardened person against the gospel. became part of a religious cult and actually was making fun of the Old Testament in his youth. And yet after he came to Christ, he had this to say, he says, God does not choose anyone who is worthy, but in choosing him, renders him worthy.

God comes, and he endows us with an identity. He endows us as faithful. He endows us with an identity in Christ. Makes me think of the story.

Of a baseball player named Orel Hershiser who played for the Dodgers and pitched the 1988 World Series back when I actually was a Dodger fan. And Tommy, when he came up, he was came to be known as the Bulldog. That was his identity. But as the story goes, when he came up to the majors in his rookie season, he had the stuff, but Tommy Lasorda, the manager, didn't see that killer instinct in him.

And so he gave him a nickname, and the nickname was Bulldog. And Orel Hershiser became a bulldog. He became that identity that Tommy Lasorda had given him. Christ looks at us in our pre-saved condition, and he doesn't see any faithful ones.

He doesn't see anyone trustworthy, but he looks at you and he looks at me, and he considers us, he counts us faithful, and gives us an identity in Christ. All of us that were faithless, he has counted, considered, faithful, and we do well to remember that identity that we have in Christ, that we have a different title now, we have a different, there's a different thing going on from our former days. And when we look at those hardened sinners in our lives, our friends and family and people workmates and So on.

realize that God can enable them to come to faith.

And he can count them faithful, he can change them to faithless people, from faithless people to faithful people. A third ground for Thanksgiving that we can offer to our Lord Jesus Christ. We can give thanks for his. Enabling grace, we give thanks for his endowing grace.

Thirdly, we can give thanks to Christ for his employing grace. Paul says, I Thank Him who's enabled me, Christ Jesus our Lord, that he counted me faithful, appointing me to his service, appointing me to his service. This is a service of, service of any kind with the thought of carrying out the commands of another. It's not just the idea that Paul was appointed to the ministry as an apostle, but he's appointed to service.

As it were, he was drafted by the Lord Jesus Christ. On that road to Damascus, as he's heading off to persecute Christians, Jesus appears to him and awakens him and drafts him into his service. And every one of you have believed in Christ this morning have been drafted by the Lord Jesus Christ into his service, into his employment. And we're having some difficult times economically as everybody is aware, and even in this church, we have a number of people that are unemployed.

And we need to continue to rally around one another and help each other during these difficult times, help those in our church that are looking for work and needing to pay bills, and we are thankful for those that are part of the Agape Committee to help identify those needs and distribute funds. Without any disrespect to those that are unemployed right now, I want to say this. There is no unemployment in Christ Corporation, the church. You have all been employed by Christ.

And he will never lay you off. You are here to work for Christ. We have been saved for a reason. And the reason is not just so that we can say I'm forgiven.

That's great. It's not just so that we can go to church and praise Him. That's awesome. We are saved.

For service. We are saved for good works with Christ Jesus has created that we should walk in them. You have been employed by the Lord Jesus Christ. How are you doing?

How are you doing for your boss, your real boss? The one who has employed you for this job, to whom we will all give an account. In Acts 26, Paul is relaying his testimony. And Jesus looked upon said, I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant, and witness to the things in which you have seen.

Delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles to whom I am sending you to open their eyes. Paul was sent to open the eyes of the blind. And we are called as Christians to go out and be employed to the Lord Jesus Christ, to open the eyes of the blind and do the impossible by the grace of God. We give thanks to the Lord for this employing grace.

And we give thanks to the Lord that he saved such a sinner like Paul to employ Paul. And we give thanks to the Lord because he can employ the most hardened sinner. A 4th ground we can look out this morning for giving Christ thanks is this. Give thanks to Christ for his, even though grace.

His even though grace. This is probably my favorite one to contemplate. Look at the first part of verse 13. Paul says, even though He enabled him He endowed him.

He employed him, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent opponent. Note here that Paul is, is not afraid to remember his former dark days and to even mention them in his testimony, but uses these sins as a way to thank Christ, and to encourage Timothy, and encourage us this morning. He lists three terms to describe his former days. These things that he had done, that God passed over that Christ passed over, and forgave him for.

The first term that describes his former days is that he calls himself a blasphemer. He was a blasphemous man. He says in Acts 26:9, I was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus Christ. We don't have specific records, but undoubtedly what this means is that Paul was going from place to place to place, trying to convince people that Jesus was not the Christ, that he was not Lord, that he was not God.

And he was using many insults to convince people otherwise. He was an apologetic against an apolo apologetician against Christ. As he went out and even tried to force others to blaspheme the name of Christ. Paul's not the only one, only blasphemer that we see mentioned in the Bible.

Think of Peter. Peter walks 3 years with Christ. This is after he's saved. And is confronted with the knowledge that he even knows the man, and he says, I don't know what you're talking about.

That's blasphemy. Peter was a blasphemer. If you think very deeply, probably every one of us in this room. is a blasphemer in some respect.

What does it really mean to take the name of the Lord in vain? Well, partially, to use his name as a cuss word. Yes, to take pleasure in people who use his name as a cuss word. Yes.

But the big idea is to take the name of the Lord on your lips by way of oath, or promise, as the Israelites did in the Old Testament, and to not fulfill that oath. It's to stand before a pastor and get married and say, I do, and I promise before God this day, I'll be faithful to that man. I'll be faithful to that woman. I will not divorce, and then to get a divorce.

That is committing blasphemy. When we stand in the waters of baptism and promise to follow Christ, and then we renege on a promise that's blasphemy. When we join a church and become a part of church membership and promise to be faithful to that local body and not to backbite and gripe and not to gossip, and we do that, that's blasphemy. When we take Christ's name, all of us are named by the name of Christ, and his reputation is staked in his people because we bear his name, and we bring shame to his people, as Paul says, shame to his name, as Paul says in Romans 2:24, Gentiles blaspheme because of you.

All of us could stand with Paul and say guilty. Paul says, I was a blasphemer. And while his style of blasphemy may be different than ours, Who of us here can say we have not blasphemed? Paul secondly describes his former life as a persecutor.

Of the church In Galatians, he says, for you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the Church of God beyond measure, and I tried to destroy it. He said he went to Jerusalem with the authority of the chief priest in Acts 26. And he cast his vote when they were putting people to death. He says he punished Christians often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme.

And in raging fury against them, I persecuted them even in foreign cities. He's a vigorous. opponent of the church. And he also describes himself as insolent, a doer of outrage.

You may call him a bully. It's, he's adding insult to injury. He wasn't satisfied just persecuting, he wanted to insult the people he was persecuting. He didn't just arrest and persecute men, but he arrested men and women, he says.

In Acts in Acts chapter 9 or Acts 22. He was a blasphemer, a persecutor, an insolent opponent of Christ and His church. And yet Jesus gives him even though grace, even though Paul did these things, Christ visited him with his mercy. I don't know if you guys have heard of the musician Steve Camp.

Anybody ever heard of Steve Camp? He wrote a song years ago called Don't Tell Him Jesus Loves Him Until you're Ready to Love Him too. It was a pretty famous song in the 90s. Steve Camp was invited one year to come up to the gay and lesbian, one of the gay and lesbian conferences up in San Francisco to come sing that song.

Because they believed That that song really reflected their attitude towards Christians. Hey, don't tell us, Jesus loves us until you're ready to love us too. And it's sad to say that, that there is some truth to that, that as Christians, we can't just point fingers at the sin, we need to be willing to do something to demonstrate our love. And that's why I so appreciate people like a pastor I met just this last Friday, who is an ex-gay who repented and came out of the lifestyle who ministers to aid patients all over Orange County and has sat with aid patients while they died to minister to their needs.

December 1st is Worldwide AIDS Day, and there's things that Christians need to do to minister to people that are caught and trapped in sin. Steve Camp is one of those that has had an attitude of love towards those caught up in this sin, and he went up to San Francisco to play the song. And when he played the song, everybody was very polite and appreciative and clapped when he was done. And after the song, he began to share.

I know about this because he shared this story with us at the Master Seminary chapel back in 1999. And after he played the song, he said, Jesus does love you. And I love you. And though I am the chief of sinners, I love you enough to tell you that my Lord Jesus, His eyes are too pure to look upon evil.

And while he created you in His image, Jesus Christ has told us in His word, That what you're practicing is sin, and worthy of judgment, but he has come to die for you. And he couldn't get to the gospel before things came flying upon the stage that I can't even mention in here because of the children. And he ran back to his, his dressing room. And people broke into his dressing room and beat him to a pulp.

And one of the guys had a needle that was allegedly filled with AIDS infected blood and was trying to poke him when the security broke in and saved him from that fate. To this day I've never heard Steve Camp. Utter a hateful word towards the gay community. He's spoken nothing but love and kindness.

And he set the model that all of us Christians should have. The model that Christians set before Paul, their persecutor. The model that Paul set for those that persecuted and beat him. The model that we must all set.

As we face persecution in the future, brothers and sisters. We are not receiving the persecution in this country that is going on in India where there's a bloodbath going on right now. We're not receiving the type of persecution in this country that's going on in different parts of Asia and so on. But I am not alone in saying that the persecution that America has avoided till now is likely here.

And we see it going on now. Are we ready? Are we ready to pray for those who despitefully use you? Are we ready to do kindness?

Are we ready to Do good to our enemies. In all likelihood, This is where we are. We can give thanks to Christ for enabling us, for endowing us with faith and faithfulness, for employing us in his service, and looking on us and giving us this, even though grace, even though we are just as wicked as anybody else out there. He has poured out His grace on us.

And those people that, those family members that, that are hardened against the gospel, God can pour out his even though grace on them. There's hope. Fifthly, a 5th ground for thanks this morning. We can give thanks to Christ for his empathetic grace, His empathetic grace.

Look at the second part of verse 13. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly. In unbelief Paul says, I received mercy. He didn't go grab mercy, pass, passive voice he received.

Mercy. From the Lord Jesus Christ. old Puritan preacher says that this could be translated, I was be mercified. Humanly speaking, there was no hope for someone as bad as Paul, but he was not beyond the mercy of Christ.

Paul gives an unusual side note to A corollary to his being mercified when he says, I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief. What in the world does Paul mean by that? Is Paul saying that somehow he is, he is not culpable for his sin, because it was done in ignorance? That he is somehow less worthy of judgment and more worthy of mercy, because he was ignorant, and other people were not ignorant.

Is that what Paul is saying? No, that's clearly not the case, because one verse later, Paul's going to say, I'm the chief of sinners. And the whole context here is to exalt the sovereign grace of God, not to put forth his own worthiness to receive that grace and mercy. What we find here is an interesting, hint or footnote to a doctrine that really is all over the scriptures, a doctrine, that's connected to the doctrine of sin.

And I think it's very important for us to understand this. I want to take a moment just to address this, this question. It is true that the Bible says that all people are totally depraved and that we suppress the truth and unrighteousness, as Paul says in Romans one, and therefore are worthy of wrath and judgment outside of Christ. And all of us are culpable for our sin.

At the same time, there is a category of sin that is shared by virtually everybody in the human race called ignorance. And I want to just point you to a couple of different passages. In Romans 10:1, Paul says this about the Jews, he says, Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to what?

Knowledge, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. He's speaking of all of Israel has not come to Christ and says, though they are culpable, though they're worthy of judgment, he's very clear about that in the book of Romans, they also fit into this category of ignorance. They're zealous, but they're ignorant. Think of Christ on the cross.

The people that crucified Him, many of the people that were involved in His crucifixion had seen his miracles. They had seen his love. You have Pharisees all around. You have Roman soldiers all around.

You have people who had spit on Christ, who had nailed the crown of thorns into his head. You have people nailed nails into his hands and feet. He had been beaten by whips. People that were aware of what had been going on in Jerusalem.

And yet Jesus on the cross looks down at these very knowledgeable people and says, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Is Jesus saying they have no concept of my miraculous powers? Is Jesus saying that they have no culpability for their actions? No, he's acknowledging a category that most people in the human race fit into.

And that is that we are ignorant in our unbelief. Even the most hardened criminal like Paul, who was out persecuting the church, didn't really understand who he was persecuting. Remember when Paul was awakened on the Damascus road? Jesus says, why do you persecute me?

And what does Paul ask? Who are you, Lord? He doesn't know. He doesn't know what he's been doing.

And so there is a category that we can legitimately draw without negating culpability for sin called ignorance. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. The ignorance, however, this ignorance must still be repented of. Consider Acts 13:17.

You can look at this later in Acts 13:17. Peter says, Yeah, now brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance. You crucified Christ in ignorance, verse 19. Does he say, therefore, you're not culpable.

Therefore, Christ will have mercy because your sin is, is less to be worried about? No, he says, repent, therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out. So that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. I want to read a clause.

A quote from Alfred, an excellent commentator about this particular clause where he says the clause is a very weighty one as applying to others under similar circumstances and should lead us to form our judgments in all charity respecting even persecutors. And if of them, then surely even with a wider extension of charity to those generally, generally who lie in the ignorance of unbelief, whatever be its causes, or its effects, all of, all of us, before we came to Christ, had a knowledge, some knowledge that Romans 1 tells us that we have a knowledge and we're suppressing it in unrighteousness.

But we also have that are within the circle of categorization called ignorance. And God looks upon us, and he has mercy on us.

And when we look at even hardened sinners and persecutors of the church, we should follow God's example and look with pity and compassion on people who are doing what they don't really understand. People, that are taking a cross from an old lady and trampling it and beating her, and hitting her for her views. Do they, they don't really understand what they're doing. There's a sense in which we need to look at that and have compassion for the ignorance that is out there.

But there is a category of beings in the universe that are not ignorant. There's the devil and the demons, first of all. The devil is not ignorant in one iota on who Christ is in his power. The demons believe and they tremble.

They are not within this category of the ignorance. And therefore, they are not within the circle of those who can be mercified by Christ. They know who Christ is. And yet every minute, they blaspheme.

Christ in the church. Every minute they incite persecution of the church, every moment, they incite insolence and insults on Christ and his people. And there will be no mercy for the devil and his demons. But let me give one last comment here before we move on, and we don't have time to talk long about this, but there is a category, even for human beings in the scriptures of those who walk outside the circle of ignorance.

Romans 6 speaks of those who have tasted of the heavenly gift, and yet they insult the spirit of grace. We have the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit passages, and while there's mystery there, we don't quite understand what all that means. And no one can really tell when that line has been drawn. We do know that there are those within the human race who have crossed that line, who have actually tasted of the gifts.

They know who Christ is. They know he's Lord of the universe. They know that of his power, and yet they shake their fist at Almighty God. Let me just offer a challenge here to the young people growing up in the church.

You can grow up in this church, and you can hear the gospel week after week after week. And you can even know that Jesus Christ is Lord. And while we never know when somebody's walked outside of that circle, and in all likelihood, I would, I would assume that everybody in this room is still within the pales of Christ's mercy. There are warnings in scripture that are given to us to not walk outside of that circle of God's mercy and shake your fist at your parents' religion, as if it was your parents' religion.

It's not your parents' faith, it's the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. And there needs to be a sense of fear, young people, if you walk away from your parents and shake your fist at Christ, that you could, I'm not saying you will, you could walk beyond the line. There's a category in scripture for that type of person. But praise the Lord Paul was somebody that if you were to look at him, you would think he had crossed that line.

But he didn't. God looked at him and said, This guy does not know what he does. Father, forgive Paul. Father, forgive the hardened sinners.

Forgive our enemies. Pour out your empathetic grace. The last ground for thanks that I want to, I want to talk about this morning is we can give thanks to Christ for his super exceeding grace. That's really what we've been talking about this whole morning, this whole theme of this whole passage is the super exceeding grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He says in verse 14, and the grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are found in Christ Jesus. The reason we say super exceeding grace is because likes to compound words in the Greek and he uses this little Greek particle called hua, which is just like super exceeding abundant grace. He just multiplies the superlatives in the Greek. God gives us His grace, His ill-deserved favor falls upon us like a mighty river that rushes over our sins.

That flood that comes from the cross to wash us over, that fountain that comes from Jesus Christ is abundant. And we can give thanks to our Lord Jesus Christ for softening our hearts, and then giving us faith that is found in Christ, and then giving us love. Paul, who was, who was, was bound in unbelief came to faith. Paul, who hated Christians, began to love Christians, and even began to receive persecution himself, and then turned to his persecutors and love them.

Only Almighty God can do that. Only Christ in his super exceeding grace can make such a change. And those of you this morning, that have children that are hardened to the gospel, there is hope. Those of you that have a, a, a spouse, a friend, a workmate, There is hope for these people who are hardened to the gospel.

Josh and I, last week before the election, my, my little boy, my 8 year old boy, we decided we're going to go down to UCR and participate in this little Yes on 8 rally and like, yeah, it'll be a good civics lesson for my son and we're homeschooling and, and let's go learn some civics, son. And we had to park about a block away from where the rally was going to be, and so we got our yellow signs out and started walking. And I did not prepare myself, let alone my son, for the, the hateful stares that we got and comments just walking over to the rally.

Josh was walking about this far away from me when we started walking to the rally.

And he was this close to me by the time we got there. I didn't have to say anything to my boy. We knew we were in foreign land. And and we went there and had some people rip our signs down and got in some lively debates and tried to love people and so on and so forth and gave my son a little civics lesson.

Participating in the political process. But, Christ can overcome. These people who have been taught Who, who don't know any better. Those, if you just say the word Jesus in today's culture, there's so many definitions of Jesus out there, people don't, they don't care if you say Jesus.

You say, I believe in God, everybody's cool with that. But if you start talking about something that Jesus specifically teaches on that the Bible addresses, That goes countercultural. Now you begin to see where people's Jesus lie. And you begin to see who our friends and who our enemies are.

Yeah Christ can change the hardest enemy. Let me close with this story. I want to tell you Of A mother who raised her child to be a Christian. She's a Christian mom.

Her husband is a pagan. She raised her children, this particular child, to follow Christ. And when he went off to college, he got corrupted by loose morals. No wonder.

had a baby out of wedlock and lived with his girlfriend for 13 years. He joined an anti-Christian cult, became a big promoter or persecutor, and at least apologetically of the church, making fun of the teachings of the Old Testament, and so on. Left his girlfriend and became engaged to an underage girl while waiting for her to come of age, he threw himself into immorality again and again, all the while his mother prayed. For the Lord to soften his heart.

One day he's underneath the tree. He happens to have a copy of the Bible there and there's some children that go running by. And they say, take up and read it, take up and read it. So he picks up the Bible and, and just reads where his finger is, and it says this Romans 13, Let us walk honestly in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof.

And this hardened opponent to Christianity. Came to Christ in that moment. It was around the time of Easter. In Saint Augustine, In 387 was baptized.

An opponent of Christ became one of its greatest defenders, and we can thank Christ for his sovereign, super exceeding grace. Let's pray and have the men come forward.